Wish
by lizandletdie
Summary: Set in the AU created for the midseason finale. Rumplestiltskin has been freed by Regina to do as he wishes, but things have changed since his captivity began and some actions have consequences far beyond what he could have imagined.


_The king and queen were dead, long live the queen – wherever she was, anyway._

It has been decades since Rumplestiltskin had tasted freedom, or was it? Regina had said he was...imaginary or some such nonsense. Regardless, he was free _now_ and there was plenty of mischief to be had – especially with the little princeling suddenly promoted to Prince-Regent on the death of his grandparents and the disappearance of the newly minted Queen Emma. The entire kingdom was in in an uproar over the return of the Evil Queen seemingly from the grave, and Rumplestiltskin was inclined to offer his services. It was never a bad idea to have a monarch in your back pocket, especially a young one.

The throne room hadn't changed overmuch since King George's time. Apparently neither of the Charmings had seen fit to redecorate it in the least, although a few of the paintings were new. He'd come in his beggar's cloak, sticking to the edges of the room and doing his best to be ignored. It was turmoil – a bevvy of advisors and generals were talking over the Prince-Regent's head. The boy was standing at a map table with a dark look on his face and staring into space. For a brief moment, Rumplestiltskin felt a flash of recognition. Something in the set of the teenager's jaw reminded him of...someone. He had a vague sense of deja vu, but he couldn't let that distract him. He must resemble his grandfather – well, his great-uncle – at the same age.

"The princess is dead," one of the advisors said loudly. "If not, then she's somewhere beyond any of our reaches. We can't waste time and resources searching for her, your majesty."  
The assembled broke out in another round of shouting at each other over the Prince-Regent's head before another one of them managed to speak louder than the rest.  
"But how can we abandon her if she still lives?" the man asked. "Either way, she's with the Evil Queen, and if we find the queen we find her. Shouldn't we be putting everything we have into neutralizing that threat?"  
"We have other enemies," another one replied. "There's the Dark Lady, for a start. We can't dedicate so much to this that we leave ourselves vulnerable to her."  
The little prince was gripping the edge of the table and grinding his teeth now, and Rumplestiltskin knew it was just a matter of moments now until it was time to make his grand entrance.

"Enough!" the Prince-Regent shouted, slamming his palm on the table in front of him. "I've lost my grandparents today, I won't lose my mother, too."

Everyone in the room was silent. All the men surrounding the boy were looking at each other warily as if trying to determine who should be the one to tell the child some bad news.

"We all want to find her," one of the men said at last. "It's just...we don't know where the Evil Queen came from, we don't know who's helping her, and we have other enemies who are stronger and more dangerous to the kingdom. We simply can't risk everything your grandparents built on this and and your mother wouldn't want us to."

Rumplestiltskin could see the boy's mind working as he tried to process what was being said. Oh yes, this was his time.

"Perhaps I could be of some assistance?" Rumplestiltskin said, making a show of stepping forward and casting off his cloak. The older men all drew their swords and pointed them at him – why did they _always_ think swords would hurt him?

"Who are you?" the Prince Regent asked. There was a clear delineation in the room between the men old enough to remember him before he'd been locked away and the ones who weren't. The older men were all on edge, while the younger ones were more confused than scared – for the moment, anyway.

Rumplestiltskin let out a chuckle and smacked one of the swords away as he walked towards the princeling.

"My my my," he said. "Aren't you the spitting image of your grandfather?"

The boy drew his sword and pushed past an advisor who was trying to shove him back to face Rumplestiltskin – oh yes, this was a Charming indeed.

"How did you know my grandfather?" the Prince asked defiantly. He was still brandishing yet another sword, but Rumplestiltskin couldn't help but be a little impressed by his bravery in the face of the unknown.

"Your grandfather and I are old friends," he replied flippantly. "You could say he owed everything to me."

The prince lowered the tip of his sword as he took in this new information, and Rumplestiltskin took advantage of the opportunity to study him from closer. The boy did certainly have Charming blood in him, but there was something else there that was strangely familiar and that set his nerves on edge.

"Who are you?" the boy asked, tilting his chin up defiantly even though they were roughly the same height. "What do you want?"

"My name is Rumplestiltskin," he replied with a deep bow. "And I've come to introduce myself to the new monarch. And who might you be, child?"

One of the advisors was looking apoplectic and started sputtering and trying to pull the princeling away, but the boy shrugged him off.

"I'm Prince Henry," he said proudly. "Son of Princess Emma and Sir Baelfire, grandson of –"

Rumplestiltskin felt the earth shift on its axis beneath his feet and he couldn't process the rest of the boy's speech about his genealogy. He lunged at Henry, grabbing him by the front of his doublet and pinning him against the table. The assembled crowd was suddenly in an uproar, but Rumplestiltskin stilled them all with a wave of his hand. Henry was staring back at him with wide eyes and his hands scrabbling across the wooden table behind him trying to find purchase or a weapon, but Rumplestiltskin didn't care. He was studying him intently, taking in the color of his eyes and the set of his jaw, the line of the boy's nose mimicked his own. It couldn't be...but it was. This was his grandson.

He released the boy quickly, his head still spinning as the child – his _grandchild_ – straightened up and smoothed the front of his doublet nervously.

"Tell me, your majesty, where is this father of yours?" Rumplestiltskin said as smoothly as he could manage with this fresh knowledge. "I'm sure he'd have an interest in the fate of your mother."

Henry puffed out his chest proudly and met Rumplestiltskin's eye.

"My father is dead," Henry replied, gesturing towards a portrait of a man on the other wall. "He died before I was born."

Rumplestiltskin felt himself go cold. He approached the painting, still holding out some kind of hope that this was all a huge misunderstanding but no – that was definitely his son and now he was gone forever. He had lost his chance to apologize and make things right. His grief overtook him like an ocean, dragging him down into the depths and all he could do was struggle to hold his head above water for the time it took him to transport himself far, far away to the same little village he'd once lived with his son in.

The village itself was long gone, now a husk of ruined homes and overgrown meadows, but it still had a familiar air to it. If he'd been a better father and a stronger man, Henry would have been born _here_ and grown up with sheep and other children. Rumplestiltskin was drowning. His heart had been shattered into a million pieces and he was sure that he was going to die. There was no way to survive this, it was a death blow.

He wandered into the woods. There had been a clearing here that the children used to like to play in when Bae was a boy. He found it overrun with trees now, and he collapsed in the rocks and grass and stared up into the stars trying to will himself to die. Anything to stop feeling this pain, any one small mercy in this unmerciful universe.

Days passed, and Rumplestiltskin didn't move. He wished he'd never been set free from the cage in the palace wished he'd never visited with the prince. There was a hollowness to him now that he didn't think he could ever fill. He was a father without a son – without any hope of his son ever being restored to him. He'd failed to protect Bae. How many years had they been in the same castle without him ever knowing his boy walked the halls above his head?

Left to his own devices, he would have laid there until he was covered by the earth and he could fall apart but the curse wouldn't release him just because he wanted to die, and at length he had to get up. If he got the dagger, perhaps he could find someone to kill him. He could be at rest, and perhaps he could even see Bae again somewhere. Or at least, he wouldn't be in pain anymore. He pulled himself up from the ground and took himself away to the Dark Castle with a movement so he could retrieve the dagger from its hiding place.

The castle felt different somehow from the moment Rumplestiltskin arrived in it, but it had been close to thirty years and the whole world felt different now that Baelfire was no longer in it. But things _had_ been moved. His spinning wheel was gone from the great hall, and a good deal of the tapestries had been taken down and either stolen or hidden. He supposed he shouldn't have expected it to remain untouched by looters, though it was a strange sort of looting. Some things had simply been moved, while others were gone. There were also items that were arguably more valuable than some of the missing ones that had been left behind. He should get the dagger first and then determine who the squatter was. Perhaps he would be lucky enough to die today.

He was just about to go to his hiding place and retrieve the dagger when he felt a presence behind him. He spun to face the threat and very nearly collapsed again. It had been thirty years, but he recognized Belle in a heartbeat. Her eyes were too distinctive to forget or mistake for anybody else, and even as she'd gotten older she was still lovely.

"Rumple?" she said in a weak voice, staring at him for a long moment and for a split second he felt relief at this one thing still being the same but then suddenly the books she'd been holding dropped to the floor and a fireball went flying at his head.

He ducked, and it took him a ridiculous amount of time to put together that Belle had just thrown a fireball at him. Belle had magic, and she was apparently still _very_ angry about their parting.

"How _dare_ you come back here?" she shouted, shooting another fireball at him.

"What's going on?" he said, waving a hand to freeze her long enough to hear him. "How did you get magic?"

She threw off his freeze and shot a bolt of lightning at him which he redirected into a wall.

"You should know," she replied coldly. "It was all in _your_ books."

Of course, she'd been in the spell books. He should have been able to put _that_ together even with his grief addled brain. She kept shooting projectiles at him, and he redirected them until he saw an opening and with a wave of his hand he pinned her high on a wall with her hands above her head.

" _Why_ are you here?" he asked her. "I told you to leave."

She narrowed her eyes at him dangerously and he tried to work through his options. He had to leave and regroup before he got the dagger. Finding Belle here had been entirely unexpected and he wasn't prepared to for it at all, not on top of losing Bae. He'd envisioned her married with a passel of children and happy – not locked in a castle reading spell books and hating him.

"Where else was I supposed to go?" she said at last. "Who was going to want me after that?"

He felt like she'd slapped him, and he stepped back, letting her slide down the wall until she was standing. She was still angry and what else could he do but vanish and leave her alone in that castle?

Rumplestiltskin wished Regina had left him in that castle, he wished that none of this had ever happened. He ruined everything he touched, and now he'd even ruined Belle.


End file.
